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Facts about cot death (crib death, SIDS)

 

Cot death (also known as crib death or sudden infant death syndrome) is not a medical matter. It is caused by poisonous gases generated in the baby's sleeping environment.

The gases are phosphines, arsines and stibines, which are all highly toxic nerve gases.

The gases are produced in the baby's cot (or other sleeping environment) by the action of common household fungus on compounds of phosphorus, arsenic and antimony present in the mattress and other bedding.

The risk of cot death increases as a mattress is re-used from one baby to the next.

Babies can be protected from this gaseous poisoning by enclosing mattresses in a gas-impermeable cover which is not capable of the gas generation concerned, and using specified bedding on top of the wrapped mattress. For details of the mattress-wrapping protocol, click on How to prevent cot death (SIDS).

Note that:

  • Breastfeeding does not prevent cot death
  • Smoking does not cause cot death
  • Sleeping a baby with feet to the foot of the cot does not prevent cot death
  • Face-up sleeping is only a partial preventive against cot death (many babies have died of cot death sleeping face-up)

This is how cot death occurs:

The gases referred to above de-activate a vital enzyme in the baby's body (the cholinesterase enzyme). As the baby ingests the gas (by inhalation or absorption through the skin), more and more of the enzyme is de-activated, until eventually there is insufficient enzyme left to support life. The function of the cholinesterase enzyme is to ensure that nerve impulses from the brain are transmitted to the parts of the body which act upon the impulses. If sufficient gas is ingested, the nerve impulses 'telling' the lungs to breathe don't reach the lungs, and the baby stops breathing. Shortly after this occurs, heart function ceases, and death follows very soon afterwards.

This explains why cot death babies do not show physical symptoms.  The babies were not ill in the medical or physiological sense; they were poisoned by environmental gaseous poisoning.
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